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Black Maternal Politics of Resistance and the Question of Community Consensus in African American Women's Literature

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Black Maternal Politics of Resistance and the Question of Community Consensus in African American Women's Literature University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects 1-1-2012 "You Are Safe": Black Maternal Politics Of Resistance And The Question Of Community Consensus In African American Women's Literature Daniela Marinova Koleva Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/theses Part of the African American Studies Commons, and the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Koleva, Daniela Marinova, ""You Are Safe": Black Maternal Politics Of Resistance And The Question Of Community Consensus In African American Women's Literature" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. 1358. https://commons.und.edu/theses/1358 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “YOU ARE SAFE”: BLACK MATERNAL POLITICS OF RESISTANCE AND THE QUESTION OF COMMUNITY CONSENSUS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE by Daniela Marinova Koleva Bachelor of Arts, University of Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria, 1995 Master of Arts, University of Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria, 1996 Master of Arts, University of North Dakota, 2004 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Grand Forks, North Dakota December 2012 C 2012 Daniela Marinova Koleva ii This dissertation, submitted by Daniela Marinova Koleva in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy from the University of North Dakota, has been read by the Faculty Advisory Committee under whom the work has been done, and is hereby approved. __________________________________ Dr. Sheryl O’Donnell (Advisor) __________________________________ Dr. Sharon Carson __________________________________ Dr. Eric Wolfe __________________________________ Dr. Yvette Koepke __________________________________ Dr. Lana Rakow This dissertation is being submitted by the appointed advisory committee as having met all of the requirements of the Graduate School at the University of North Dakota and is hereby approved. _______________________________ Dr. Wayne Swisher _______________________________ Date iii Title “You Are Safe”: Black Maternal Politics of Resistance and the Question of Community Consensus in African American Women’s Literature Department English Degree Doctor of Philosophy In presenting this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my dissertation work or, in her absence, by the Chairperson of the department or the Dean of the Graduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this dissertation or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my dissertation. Daniela Marinova Koleva Date: 20/11/2012 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………….vii ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………....viii PREFACE ………………………………………………………………………...…x CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: HEGEMONY, POLITICS, EMPTY SIGNIFIERS, AND AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITING INFANTICIDE …………………………………….1 II. “THE CLOSING DOOR” THAT OPENS THE ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK COMMUNAL DEBATE ON SAFETY…...42 Mothering The Kipling Way, Going Softly Under the Stars…………………………………………………….55 “What Had Agnes Milton Wanted in My Room?”…………………………………………………63 III. DARK MATERNAL VOICES, PROTEST DRAMA, AND THE MAKING OF POLITICAL SUBJECTS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN PLAYS BY WOMEN……………………............69 Scholarly Criticism on Protest Drama…………………..73 Shirley Graham and It’s Morning …………………….…85 Georgia Douglas Johnson and Safe …………………….100 Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Literary Salon…………….120 IV. TONI MORRISON’S POLITICS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCE………………………………………………….139 v V. SAFETY, SETHE, STH, SOUND: MATERNAL POLITICS AND THE QUESTION OF COMMUNITY CONSENSUS IN TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED ………………………….187 Other Interpretations of Safety Or That Safety Which Is Not One……………………………………...205 Enter the Sound……………………………………...…229 VI. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………......250 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………...…256 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my doctoral advisor, Dr. Sheryl O’Donnell, for the dedication and passion with which she guided the whole project. Her class on “bad girls” in literature is the initial inspiration for the current work. Dr. O’Donnell has taught me the power of freedom, curiosity, and experimentation in research. I would like to thank Dr. Sharon Carson, whose classes on African American literature and democracy proved to be highly informative and insightful. I also want to thank Dr. Eric Wolfe for teaching me the importance of signs in his memorable class on Melville. My thanks to Dr. Yvette Koepke, who with her critical thought and assessment helped me be a better thinker. Last but not least, I am grateful to Dr. Lana Rakow for her punctuality and responsiveness. Once again, thank you all for your professional feedback and valuable suggestions for revision. I cannot express enough gratitude to Dr. David Marshall for providing me with much needed support and professional advice throughout my academic career at UND. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for being with me through all this. vii ABSTRACT The study focuses on a number of African American women’s literary texts that employ the figure of the black mother and the motif of infanticide to engage in critical statements about system arrangements, repressive practices, and theory designs with direct effect upon black people’s choices for organizing their lives and existence. Such critical statements are inevitably political and their construction is offered in a most provocative and startling way given the choice of maternal infanticide to make the claims. Angelina Weld Grimke’s “The Closing Door” (1919), Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Safe (c.1929), Shirley Graham’s It’s Morning (c. 1938-1940), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) are texts that explicate the working of the political through an expression of controversial black maternal politics that demands a renegotiation of the basis for communitarian unity. In these texts, black mothers murder their children in often utterly grotesque and spectacular ways to claim brazenly that they provide safety for their children from slavery and lynching. Safety is the one thing missing in their lives and the one thing that mothers secure for their children by definition. Through the act of infanticide and its subsequent interpretations, the signifier safety is quickly thrust into a field of discursivity where competing notions as to what lends meaning to “safety” exist: “safety” as death and violence, as dismembered human body, as grotesque maternal mastery, as mother-child oneness or as sound that breaks the back of words. Thus, the signifier safety reaches the status of what political theorist Ernesto Laclau calls viii in Emancipation(s) the “signifier of empty communitarian fullness” (43). It will arrest meaning only after a particular articulation of safety brings the promise of communitarian wholeness. Put in the time of their publication, Grimke’s “The Closing Door” (1919), Johnson’s Safe (c. 1229), Graham’s It’s Morning (c. 1938-1940) and Morrison’s Beloved (1987) serve also as responses to the emerging Harlem Renaissance art theories of the 1920s and 30s and the birth of African American vernacular theories in the late 1970s and 1980s where each, from the perspective of its days and goals, aimed to position African American literature safely , with the necessary dose of comfort, on the American literary and cultural map. The novelty of this project lies first in the fact of putting Angelina Weld Grimke’s “The Closing Door,” Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Safe , Shirley Graham’s It’s Morning , and Toni Morrison’s Beloved together for critical examination. To my knowledge, no such study that links infanticidal literature authored by African American women writers exists. Second, it is a critical exploration of the political role of the literary figure of the black mother in shaping community consensus along intracommunal (black) lines and a glimpse of the relation between African American women’s texts and theories designed to promote African American literary features. Third, I hope that the study will serve as an illumination of Ernesto Laclau’s political theory on hegemony and emancipation, and will contribute to the field of feminism, African American studies, American literature, and political studies. ix PREFACE This project began several years ago while I was completing my course requirement work and was preparing for the upcoming comprehensive exams for my doctoral degree. The course that I enrolled in was on “bad girls” in literature. The course was not exclusively restricted to the context of any particular national or ethnic literature, a feature that definitely appealed to me, even though for the most part the American geographic and political context remained prevalent
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